Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Desires: when they're guaranteed to be granted.

“Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” Psalms 37:4

I suppose you’ve read it before, too. Perhaps you’ve even claimed this promise. And I can guess that if you’ve claimed it, you’ve probably experienced disappointment, too.

The truth is that every human heart has desires. It also wants to find a way to satisfy them. And there certainly are plenty of ways of “satisfying” the desires that humanity has.

But there’s a problem. As Christians, we know that most of those ways are contrary to the ways of our Lord. And perhaps the desire itself is completely opposite of His ways. At the very least, whether we are Christians or not, we find that the more we try to satisfy our desires, the less satisfied we are.

It’s an impossible situation — a heart being eaten away by desires that only grow in every attempt to satisfy them. Or is it?

That’s what I love about this promise. For the most impossible situation that humanity faces — a heart that wars against every good thing — there is a most amazing solution.

When we delight ourselves in the Lord — seek His pleasure in place of our own, do His work and speak His words, cheerfully give Him the time that belongs to Him, in short, when we seek to satisfy His desires first — a miracle happens.

You see, were God to grant us everything that our selfish human hearts think will satisfy us, we would be worse than unsatisfied. We would be broken and drained of everything that we did have. We would destroy ourselves. That’s why God asks us choose His ways, choose to let Him into every little detail of our lives. But why? Why choose to do that when it isn't what we desire?

This amazing God that we have can take away those desires that we are powerless to change and put desires in our hearts that can be satisfied, more than satisfied. He isn't just capable of satisfying our desires. He is also capable of giving us desires that can actually be satisfied.

But that's not all. He takes our broken, thirsty souls and does more than fill them. He makes them fountains that overflow with the same thing that satisfies their desires that others might be satisfied as well.

Because the only way to be satisfied is to satisfy.

“Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” John 4:13, 14